Wednesday, March 14, 2012

The Earthquake, Japan, and Me - End

My four months in Okayama was over in a flash, faster than a
Shinkansen flying down the train tracks to its destination. Because I wanted to
visit Tokyo at least once in this trip, I had arranged for my flight returning
home to be from Narita airport. By the time my semester was over I was certain
things had cleared up in the capital and I would get my time in the city.

Village Vanguard - Shimokitazawa

I ended up staying with the same host family who let me stay
in their house in Saitama when I was in high school. They had told me they were
fine from the earthquake, but that Tokyo was still quite scary with all the
smaller earthquakes happening frequently. Their house was off in the country
side and it gave me the peace and relaxation I needed after such a long journey
from Okayama and even more so a much needed rest from all that had happened in
the last four months: four months studying the Japanese language and culture,
practicing with the members in my band in Jazz club, hanging out with the other
international students, meeting new people, experiencing so many new things and
being to so many new and exciting places I had only seen in books…this was all
finally over and the few days I spent with my host family cooled me down to go
back to my life at home. But even now I was reminded of what had transpired
almost half a year before: air-conditioners were turned off or on low at busy
department stores despite the summer heat in order to save energy. Commercials
were still urging people to cut back on power. And earthquakes were still
happening late into the night. At a concert I went to in Yoyogi I found it
eerie that a member from a band named trademark, who I was supposed to see in
Tokyo, helped assist one of the singers that I came to see that night. Because
of the earthquake I was unable to see trademark’s gig in Tokyo that night in
April but still fate somehow had it that I would still be able to meet him.

After
I left my host family, I stayed one day in the middle of Tokyo at a small hotel
in Ikebukuro to see a concert the day before I was going back to Guam. It was a
much needed farewell gift I was giving myself in order to say goodbye to Japan.
If you can’t imagine already, I had so many things going on in my head during
my last nights here, in Tokyo and in Japan; it was like a heavy weight was
dropped into my stomach, a weight that made it hard to walk, to talk, to do
anything. Walking alone in the streets to Harajuku, to Shimokitazawa, aboard
the trains transferring between lines in the busiest stations in Japan, it had
all taken a mighty toll on me physically, but ten-fold mentally. I was worn
down and my mind was fogged with an innumerable amount of emotions.

a picture of her performs at Shinjuku Nine Spices

Even though not all the bands that night had
vocalists to verbally express their music you could definitely feel it in the
way they conveyed their emotions through music. There was definitely something
moving these folks to give it their all in this basement that passed as a club
in the metropolitan Shinjuku district. It was amazing seeing all these bands,
and susquatch, a band that was on my list of bands I had to see one day, would
finally graduate from that list. Even if the audience was scarce at the
beginning of the show I looked back later to see that the entire venue was
filled wall to wall with people coming to see the bands. Talking to some of
them after the show left me feeling incredibly happy and with a little of that
initial weight lifted slightly off my shoulders.

Later, I found out by some means that this concert was
delayed about 5 months: it was originally supposed to take place on March 11:
the day the disaster ravaged Japan. Five months later the event organizers had
finally gotten a day booked so that the original gig could finally go on as
planned(after all, the series of gigs had already been in its 3rd or
4th installment, despite the fact that the first one never
happened).

Do you think Japan, or even the world, will begin to forget
about this disaster? I know I haven’t.